Trick or Treat? A Fight Between Good and Evil with Michael McFaul | GoodFellows | Hoover Institution

At a time of “hot wars” across the globe, there’s also an ideological “cold war” featuring two foes: those who embrace freedom and those who oppress it. Michael McFaul, the Hoover Institution’s Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow and author of the newly released Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, America, Russia and the New Global Disorder, joins GoodFellows regulars John Cochrane and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster to discuss where he departs from the Trump administration on its approach to Russia and China (one autocracy economically dwarfing the other), his suggestions for course change, and why he holds “guarded” optimism for America’s future. After that: John and H.R. go “trick-or-treating”—weighing the pros (“treats”) and cons (“tricks”) of a new White House ballroom, a Chinese military purge, the latest inflation numbers and gold prices that no longer glitter, a CEO’s tariff worries, New York City on a non-hallowed eve of “democratic socialism,” plus a new and tougher American citizenship test (could Sir Niall Ferguson pass it?). Finally, as Halloween approaches, John and H.R. give us their go-to candies.

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
- It is Tuesday, October 28th, 2025,
and welcome back to GoodFellowsat Hoover Institution
Broadcast, examining history,economics, and geopolitics,
and a few other matters in the news.
I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a HooverDistinguished Policy fellow.
I'll be your moderatortoday, joined by two
of my colleagues whom wejokingly refer to as GoodFellows.
That would be theeconomist, John Cochrane,
and former PresidentialNational Security Advisor,

(00:29):
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster.
Gentlemen, it's good to see you.
Hey, great to see everybody.H.R. especially good to see you.
Your Philadelphia Phillies kind
of unceremoniouslyexited from the playoffs
and you disappear from the show.
I hope the two were not linked throws
to the plate. Oh my goodness.
- He throws it away andthe Dodgers have won.
How, how do you not goto first, how do you,

(00:51):
how do you not go to first?
Okay, I don't wanna talk about,
- Okay, we won't talk about that.
We have a few weightier issues
with baseball to get in today.
A two part show for you.
The second part of theshow, we're gonna go trick
or treating, and let me explain that.
I'm gonna give you a series of issues,
and you're gonna tell mewhether they are tricks
as in bad news or treats as in good news.
But first, we're gonna go to a topic
that's a little less seasonalhere at the you on this show,

(01:14):
something we talk about year round.
And that is the Great Powers Competition.
And joining us for thisdiscussion is our Hoover
colleague, Michael McFaul.
Mike McFaul is the Peter
and Helen being seniorfellow here at the Hoover
Institution, as well as aprofessor of Political science
and director and seniorfellow at the Freeman Spokey
Institute of For InternationalStudies at Stanford
University for January,2012 to February, 2014,

(01:35):
Mike McFaul served as the US Ambassador
to the Russian Federationbefore becoming Ambassador.
He served for three yearsas a special assistant
to the president andsenior director for Russian
and Eurasian Affairs at theNational Security Council.
He joins us today to talkabout his latest book,
literally Hot Off the Presenceas today as its release date,
the book's title, autocratsversus Democrats, China America,
Russia, and the New Global Disorder.

(01:56):
Mike, welcome back to GoodFellows,
and thanks for joining us inyour sleep deprived state.
I understand you're upto all hours watching
that in sipping baseball game last
- Night.
Well, I couldn't make it to the end,
but thanks for havingme. Really appreciate
- It.
My pleasure, Mike. We'llget to the book in a moment,
but first, let's talk aboutthe complicated relationship
that is Donald Trump, VladimirPutin, the United States,
Russia, and Ukraine.

(02:17):
Last week, Mike, there wassupposed to be a summit
and Budapest between Trump and Putin.
It does not happen.
The Treasury Departmentproperly sanctions two
Russian oil companies.
And then there's ongoingquestion about whether
or not Ukraine's gonna getlong rage Tomahawk missiles.
President Trump says nosaying it's too complicated
to teach 'em how to fire them,
but nato Secretary Generalsays it's still in place.
So, Mike, tell us what's coming next.

(02:39):
- Well, first of all, I don't know,
and talking about President Trump
with HR McMaster on the on theline, I'm gonna defer to him.
He understands the president,
our president a lot better than I do.
I I do know what I think is good
for America's national interests
and is good for small D Democratsaround the world, which is
that this is a fightbetween good and evil.

(03:00):
That's the way I see it. Putin is evil.
He is a barbaric imperialist.
He's slaughtering innocentcivilians every single day.
He is kidnapping Ukrainian kids,
and he's killed his opponentsback home, including two
of my personal friends,the Ukrainians, they're,
they're on the side of good,they didn't do anything wrong.

(03:20):
They didn't threatenRussia. They're a democracy.
Putin's a dict, a dictator,
and they're fighting for thefreedom of their country.
But I also think they'refighting for the freedom
of all of Europe.
And I actually think this is related
to what's happening in Asia, too.
I was recently in Taiwan,Taiwan about three months ago,
and I lo saw many government officials

(03:41):
who are following very closely in Ukraine.
In fact, I saw a lot ofUkrainian flags in Taiwan
because they understand howthese things are intertwined,
what we should have done,
going all the way back tothe beginning of the war.
And I, I would even go backto the early 1990s in terms
of mistakes, but we, we won'tgo through the whole history,
but when this happened, weshould have given Ukrainians all

(04:04):
the weapons they needed to try
to stop the Russians on the battlefield
and put in comprehensivesanctions right away.
I think the incrementalism, most certainly
before the full scale invasionstarted in 2022, but even
after it did, has not ledto good outcomes for our,
our security interests.

(04:26):
And, and I just wish wewould've done it all back then
with respect to President Trump.
And again, H.R. knows thepresident a lot better than I do,
but I've witnessed his,you know, his relationship
with Putin, and it'sbeen a close relationship
for many, many years.
He, he doesn't dividethe world in autocrats

(04:47):
and Democrats, it seems to me.
He divides the world into strong leaders
and weak leaders, irrespective
of whether they're autocrats or Democrats.
But lately I've seen thePresident, in my view,
becoming more sober
and more realistic about howto deal with Vladimir Putin.
And that has been positive in my view.

(05:07):
He initially came in
and it sounded, it justseemed like they just wanted
to give Putin whatever he wanted.
His special envoy, StevenWhitcoff would go to Moscow
and just to kind of wrwrite down the laundry list
and bring it back, and then putting
pressure on the Ukrainians.
And I, I know the Ukrainiangovernment pretty well.
I've worked with a lot of them,
hosted presidents Zelenskyat Stanford before the war.

(05:29):
But that didn't work. You know,
Putin just kept asking for more.
I do think Putin overreached in his asks
and this audacious askhe had of getting Trump
to convince Zelensky to withdrawfrom the parts of Donbas,
that's his part, aregion in eastern Ukraine
where Ukrainian soldiers are.

(05:49):
And he hasn't been able toconquer Donbas since 2014.
I just think he overreached on that,
and I think the presidenthas realized that.
So I appreciate his rhetorical change.
You know, it changes hismind from time to time.
But, but he's talkingdifferent about President Putin
and he's ever talked about him.
I appreciate that he sanctionedthese two oil companies

(06:11):
that should have been donethree and a half years ago,
but better late than never.
But now I think he needsto take on the challenge
of providing more weapons,including these tomahawk weapons.
And as I say, on, on allpodcasts and, and tv.
I'm not gonna pretendto be a general on tv,
and especially when I'm on apodcast with an actual general.

(06:33):
So I'll let H.R. talk about, youknow, the heart limitations
and har how hard it is to use tomahawks.
But we need to give thoseUkrainian warriors more means
to stop the Russian soldiers.
In fact, I just met with oneof 'em just a few days ago.
A woman who signed up to join the,
the army became a sharp shooter in 2022,

(06:53):
is now working on counterintelligenceand her plea to me.
And so my plea to our administration
and the entire free worldis give us the means
to stop these invaders andwe'll take care of it ourselves.
They're not asking for our soldiers.
And I think that's the prudentstrategy moving forward.
- Hey Michael, you know, oneof the things that I, I think

(07:15):
that, that severaladministrations have had in common
to address kind ofpresident Trump's, you know,
vacillation here on Putin
and just continued desire towant a good relationship, is
that every American presidenthas kind of fallen for that.
Based in, in my assessment,I'd love to hear
what you think about this, that really
what the motivates Putinis his security concerns.
And if we just allayhis security concerns,

(07:37):
things will get better.
And he will realize thathis future lives with Europe
and the West and, you know,not, not with China and,
and his, his own kind of revist agenda,
but you know, what really drives him
and makes him more aggressive,
I think is the perception of weakness.
And what he's driven byis this kind of obsession
with restoring Russia tonational greatness based on the

(07:58):
sense of honor lost atthe end of the Cold War.
And, and now you were a student of Russia.
You went to Russia right
after the Right, right atthe end of the Cold War.
Yeah. You, you, you've trackedPutin his whole career.
You know, what, what do we get wrong?
What do we, including president,what are many presidents,
you know, from President Bush
who looked into his soul, right?
Yeah. You had the, the effort for a reset

(08:20):
with Russia under theObama administration.
You had, of course, presidentTrump's desire, Hey,
wouldn't it be great if we have a good
relationship with Russia?
Yeah. And then, you know, president
Biden went to Geneva, right?
Yeah. You had to lay out his deadlines
and thought he could maybe.
So what do we get wrongabout Putin in Russia?
- Well, that's a big great question,
and that's takes me a longtime to answer it in the book.

(08:40):
In fact, all of these are big questions.
That's why the book's 500 pages long
- Page Turner though, Michael. It's a
- Page.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Page turner.
Well, just so you know, it used, it used
to be 1200 pages long 'causeI override everything.
So I've, I've done some editing, but,
but I'd say a couple of things.
'cause I think it's a fundamentalquestion about the nature
of great power competition.

(09:02):
Yes. Power is a driver of it, right?
You're, we're not interested in a, a,
a podcast about us kgicompetition because,
and I don't mean any disrespectfor the country of Kirstan,
but they don't have enoughpower to threaten us.
So we don't, we don't have to care.
We don't need to knowwhat their intentions are.
'cause it doesn't matter.
Russia has power to changethe borders tragically.

(09:25):
And Russia has power tothreaten our national interests
as Xi Jinping does.
So capabilities, everythingstarts with capabilities.
But my book is titled Autocratsversus Democrats on Purpose.
Because I don't thinkcapabilities is the whole story.
I do think regime type andleaders matter as well.
And so when I trace the history,H.R. of US China relations

(09:47):
and US Russian relationsstarting in the 18th century,
I start in 1776.
It's the, the combination ofthose three variables, right?
Power regimes and individuals.
And I know that's not very,you know, the, the, it's
academia, political science,
and I don't know thediscipline of history as well
as I should, but political science,

(10:07):
we don't do a good job of writing about
- It.
Sounds like we're converting you,
Michael, you're talking about history
- Man's awesome.
Well, just so you guysknow, in the Department
of Political Science fromtime to time at Stanford,
I am sometimes referred to as a historian,
and it is not a compliment,just so you know,
- But hey, Michael, youknow the old joke, right?

(10:28):
That the, you know, the, thepolitical scientist says the
historian, okay, okay,that works in practice,
but doesn't work in theory.
- You know, John, John Cochrane
likes to be called a historian.
John, why don't you jump in here
- That we, that was, I thoughtthat was the University
of Chicago economist,
but I guess we retell good jokesin, in many different ways.

(10:48):
I'm, I would love to hearout, out front Ukraine,
hawkishness, 'cause I've been on
that end since this show started, and it,
but let, let's try to understandwhat Trump is doing here.
The, the Biden administration.Why did they not do stuff?
They thought, well, we don't want
to escalate not thinking about, well,
maybe he should be worriedabout us escalating,

(11:09):
not the other way around,
- Right?
- And, and so it was the, the appease
and escalation strategy.
I don't think that'swhat's going on with Trump.
Trump's negotiationstyle seems to be cycle
between flattery and threats.
And some of this feels likethe, the flattery end of it.
Oh, we, you know, we,we'll, we'll be nice to you.
We won't send you cruisemissiles along with the,

(11:29):
he's a great guy and so forth,which then goes to threat.
Now, I would've thoughtthe lessons of Iran
and Hamas recently was
that the threat end is muchmore successful if you wanna
bring people to the, atleast the negotiating table,
- Right?
- If not to actual defeat, Imean, wars end with defeat.
Let's be clear, youknow, even negotiations,
which are saying was let'sfreeze this for a while.

(11:50):
North South Korea, east West Germany,
and continue to fight byother means as opposed to no,
you're, you're really gonna give in.
And, and that's the end of that, which is,
you mentioned capabilities.
The striking thing here, of course, is
that the diff the capabilities of NATO
and the US versus Russia isjust overwhelming, right?
We've never seen anything like this.

(12:10):
If we wanted to do something about it.
Now, sitting in the, sittingin the wings is China
and it's not so clear, you know,
the will may be lacking in both cases,
but the capabilities is, is notso clear in the China thing.
So I just think thateven adds to the case.
Give them the tomahawks, givethem what it takes, you know,
this is over pull back to pull back

(12:32):
to the pre 2014 borders or else.
- Well, I, I agree and,
and I wanna build on what,talk about Putin a little bit
and then capabilities and intentions.
So, H.R. actually met Putin in 1991.
So I met him when he's thedeputy mayor of St. Petersburg.
I wouldn't say we'reFacebook friends these days

(12:53):
'cause he's not onlybanned me from Russia,
he wants to arrest me.
But, but I think there'sbeen an evolution, John,
in his thinking, and Iwanna be clear about this,
and I know this is controversial.
You know, he, initially he wasan accidental president that,
you know, the circumstances,the 1998 financial crash,
they needed to find somebodyto run against the communist.

(13:14):
And they picked this guy,
and then I think they mayhave started a war to, to,
to promote him.
That's controversial statement.
But our former colleague,John Dunlop, wrote a,
a great book about that.
But back then, you know,he talked about cooperating
with the west and on economic policy,
he introduced a flat tax

(13:34):
and a Hoover idea, by theway, of 13% individual tax.
He cut corporate taxes.
He was surrounded by, you know
what I would consider smartpeople, the people I knew well,
and, but over time what happened
and what really frightenshim is not NATO expansion.
That's a complete myth. It'sdemocratic expansion. Yeah.

(13:56):
And, and when, you know,first in Georgia 2003,
then the Orange Revolutionin 2004, those are the events
that really rocked his world,
was not actually the war in Iraq.
I, I sat and listened to him, talked
to Obama about it in 2009.
And then the de revolutionof, of de democratic,

(14:17):
you know, of dignity, that'swhat they call it, revolution
of dignity in 2014, theUkrainians, he says that,
that it was a CIA conspiracythat we did that, right?
And so that's what he's most obsess about.
And as a result of that,
because it's so ideological,he's not transactional.
And I heard so many times, youknow, he's transactional guy.

(14:39):
We just gotta do a deal with him.
And I, I don't think he'smotivated by these bigger ideas,
and therefore you have tostop him on the battlefield.
It's not about convincing him, you know,
we're gonna convince himthrough a good argument
to stop his war.
No, you need to stop hissoldiers on the battlefield.
That's when he'll negotiate.

(15:01):
And that's why tragically
but necessarily they need more weapons.
- And so what you'resaying is that the deal
that our side wants, whichis, you know, you even get
to keep the donbas, we sort of stop.
There's a DMZ and soforth, that's not happening
because that deal includes,and Ukraine is on our side
and, you know, they,they become the tech hub
for defense in Europe
and they sort of startjoining the European Union

(15:22):
and they, you know, they,
they'll maybe they'll bethe next Argentina Europe
that is just not happening in Putin's
mind, is what you're telling me.
- Well, I wanna be wrongbecause I want this word to end.
And I, you know, I hope that
through a stalemate on the battlefield,
he might see the wisdomto, to stop fighting.
But I fear that if, if thereis a democracy in Ukraine,

(15:45):
that's a threat to Putin.
If there's a thrivingcapitalist economy in Ukraine,
that's a threat to Putin.
Because to go back to theCold War one, you know,
as I do in the book, one
of the great things we did isour economy outperformed the
communist economy economies.
West Germany, outperformed East Germany,
we outperformed the Soviets,
South Korea outperformed theNorth Koreans, et cetera.

(16:08):
And that's one of thereasons we won the Cold War.
And Putin gets that.
He understands that,
and that's why I thinkhe's gonna be obsessed
with weakening Ukrainefor a long time to come.
- Michael, could I ask you justa broader question then too,
because, you know, Ithink his goals go beyond,
obviously beyond Ukraine, right?
It is part of this grand design
to reestablish the Russian empire.

(16:29):
And he really, really, what he wants
to do is break apart Europe
and run the transatlantic relationship.
- Yes.- Kill nato.
So when I've looked at like,what, what Putin's been trying
to maneuver into, what he wantsis he wants President Trump
to, to agree to terms for a ceasefire
that are unacceptable to the Ukrainians.
And to use that as a wedge
to drive the UnitedStates away from Ukraine,

(16:51):
but also across Europe.
And can you may maybe justtalk a little bit about
what Putin's grander designs are,
because when Americans say like, oh,
why do I care about Ukraine?
You already mentioned the connection
to security in Indo-Pacific,
but could you also talk aboutwhat's going on more broadly
in terms of Yeah, Russia'sdesigns on Europe?
- It's a great question, and I spent a lot
of time in the book talkingabout it with respect

(17:14):
to the revisionist powers,China and Russia and hr.
That was your nationalsecurity strategy where you use
that F framework.
And, and I use that in the book.
And by the way, yournational security strategy,
it's a slide in my booktalk, just so you know.
I give you a shout out for that.
And then I show that Iquote Secretary elect

(17:37):
Blinken saying the Trump
administration was right about China.
So that's all on the slidedeck. I'll send it to you guys.
So, so you see, that'sthe way I talk about,
- That's the affirmationI was seeking right there.
- I wanted to make sure I said that
before I move on to other things.
But, but what I also talk about,
I have three chapters onideological competition
and putinism, which Ithink is an ideology,

(17:59):
and we can argue about it or not.
But if liberalism is an ideology,
then Illiberalism is also an ideology.
He is an illiberal nationalist.
And what he sees is he wants
to break down the liberalinternational order
or, or just the west.
He wants to break apart nato.
Let's make it more simplethan that. He absolutely does.
He wants to go back to aworld of spheres of influence

(18:21):
where Russia is a respectedpower with other ones.
And he is invested a lot in that.
I think people underestimate that.
You know, Russia today ispr propagating these ideas.
He's got his own set ofNGOs, they're meeting
with NGOs in Europe and America.
I remember when I was theambassador, I got this memo,

(18:41):
you know, a cable to go out where a group
of evangelical leadersfrom a southern church,
I think in Mississippi, werein Russia, this is 2012,
to meet with a Russian Orthodox church
to talk about their common values.
And you know, the Cold War
to Oversimplify was mostlya fight between, you know,

(19:02):
communist states and free states
and red team and blue team, right?
And, you know, we had, wehad some communists around,
you know, they're up in Berkeley.
That's a Stanford joke,but they were there,
I remember I met, you know,I would see these guys,
they're kind of kooky, butthey were not mainstream.
There's millions ofEuropeans who like Putin
and you know, in Hungary,Italy, France, the UK

(19:25):
and the United States.
And he is playing thisgame to divide us within,
to weaken our resolveas a, as a unified nato
and as a unified free world.
And I think we've just gottarealize this is a fight not
just between states, but within them.
And then get smarterabout how to fight back.
- Mike, let's, let's drillinto the book a little bit.

(19:47):
The title again, autocratsversus Democrats, China America,
Russia, and The New Global Order.
Very disturbed that yousay this is your last book.
You are a young man. Andlook at John Cochrane.
He's just, John Cocusstill cranking up books
and we're just hittingPete Cochrane right now,
so don't stop writing.
Okay,
- Well, I don't know, this book took me
years and years to write.
- Well, after a couple months,
Michael, you think, oh, that was easy.

(20:08):
And then you'll try, you'lltalk yourself into start. Okay?
You'll talk yourself into startin another one, in a couple.
- We'll see, we'll see.
But this, this was ahard book and a long book
because I wanted to wrestle,first of all, I wanted
to know why there's, there's conflict and,
and I wanted to lookat eras of cooperation.
So that's why I had to goback to the 18th century.
And I wanted to wrestlewith these variables

(20:30):
of power regime type and individuals.
So to get variation on that,you need 250 years of history.
But that almost killed me to learn that.
And then the, but
but then in towards theend, I, I do wanna make, I,
I have three prescriptive trap chapters.
And, and that's the piecethat, that to me matters most

(20:52):
because I, I've, there, II talk about similarities
and differences in the Cold War.
We can go through themif you're interested.
But one of the big differenceshere within the United States
is these isolationist tendencies
that we have in both parties.
The Republican Party and Democratic Party.
And that scares me
and polarization thatwe have in our society.

(21:13):
And there was polarization in the late
sixties and early seventies.
I get it, I know I gothrough that history,
but it worries me that we're pulling back
and it, I just don't think
that serves our long-termnational security interests.
So the animating argument was why,
why it serves our intereststo be engaged versus
to pull back why it servesour interests to have allies

(21:35):
as opposed to going alone.
And why it serves our intereststo promote ideas of freedom
and liberty and democracy.
I think those are good thingsto promote ideologically,
but I also think they serveAmerica's national interests.
And what I think, you know, elites,
and I'm not going togeneralize for others,
I'll just say about myself.

(21:56):
I spent a lot of time talkingabout these kinds of ideas
and Washington and Palo Altoand Cambridge on occasion,
and Brussels, this book.
I want to be in other places.
And I already have been, I wasin South Carolina last week.
I was at UT University of Texas,Arlington, the week before.
I'm heading to Pennsylvania next.

(22:17):
I'm going Erie, Pennsylvania, Akron, Ohio.
'cause I think we haveto have these debates
with all Americans, not just elites.
'cause if we don't, ifwe don't convince America
that this is in our long-term
interests, we're gonna pull back.
And I think we're gonnamake a lot of mistakes.
- Can can I ask, I wanna askthe economist question about
the Cold War analogy.
I I don't think Putinin Russia is the issue.

(22:39):
You mentioned Europe, the people
who are saying nice thingsabout Putin in Europe,
they're sort of rightwingers who say, look,
the left wing's been wrongabout everything else.
They're probably wrong about this too,
but it's not a deep affectionfor let's do things in Russia.
They're kind of playing around.
- Yeah,- Russia is the Cuba of the Cold War.
It's not the Soviet Union.
- Yeah, I like that. That'sa great analogy. Good.
- I like that. And nowChina is, is the issue.

(23:00):
- Yes, of- Course. And here as an economist, I,
I worry a lot because thecentral difference between this
and the last Cold Waris Soviet Union was an
economic basket case.
- Yes.- And,
and you know, you just had tosee it in the grocery stores.
Russian would come to the US
and start crying when theysaw our grocery stores.
Unfortunately, the grocerystores are, are now in China.

(23:22):
- Yeah. - You know, the, thegreatest thing I always could
rely on in discussion withBerkeley is the freedom works.
We don't have to argue about, you know,
maybe socialism delivers prosperity.
You know, you had to, thesocialists had to say, well,
it it gives you great moral
value even though we're all poor.
But China's working. Right.
You know, they can cover their country

(23:43):
with high speed trains
and we can cover our country
with environmental reports, right?
We have, we have, I thinkit's, you know, regulations
and taxes, all the rest of it.
Our big companies, you know, GM
and US Steel, that's what ourindustrial policy produces.
I think China's more
'cause of it's brutallycompetitive than subsidized.
Yes, we can argue about that.
But we, we are not doing well economically

(24:07):
compared to China.
And lots of China's still poor,
but the parts of it thatare rich look pretty nice.
- Yep.- And that's gonna be a,
and they know how to do stuff
that we don't know how to do anymore.
This is gonna be a hard sell.
Now, I think that requires looking inside
and saying, we gottafree our ourselves up.
We really have to be freedom.
You know, free markets are like they say,
if communists free marketshave never really been tried.

(24:29):
But that seems to me amuch harder challenge
for the next Cold War thatChina works economically in a
way Russia never did.
And we are still holding ourselves back
and Europe way more so.
- Well, John, I could not agree more,
and I'm not an economist,
but I read economists including you,
- And we hang out with a lot of 'em.
I think Michael,

(24:50):
I think we should getcollege credit for economics.
You and I just because, becauseof the friends we have here.
- No credit till you dothe equations, guys. Well,
- That's, that will defeat me.
But, but analytically, I just, I, I agree
with, with a couple
of other things I would add from my book.
So that, that difference isthe fundamental difference.

(25:12):
You just described it. And then it's,
it's a bigger challenge because of that.
Right. Number two, Iwould also remind people
that China is growing today,not because of communism, but
because they pulled back on communism
and they introduced market reforms.
I think this gets confusedin, in the debates

(25:32):
that I participate in.
It was because it'snot, you know, and, and,
and if you don't think I'mright, remember under communism,
under Mao, the sameregime, the same slogans,
it was a disaster.
So it was new policies,more market friendly
that made them grow.
And what I see that,
that I'm a little bit optimisticabout is Xi Jinping is

(25:53):
moving away from that andhe's slowing that down
and he's doing more state intervention.
And I think that's gonnahave detrimental consequences
for their long-term economic growth.
But, but it is notbecause of communism, it's
because they were becoming more like us.
But John, you're the expert.
I'm not, I I would also saywe got way too complacent,

(26:13):
not enough competition.
And, and we need, you know, Ihave sections in my book about
how we need more freedom,economic freedom in our country.
Yes, we have to trip up theChinese in different places.
And I talk about certain places,
but the idea that we're gonna crush them
through tariffs is absurd.

(26:35):
And tariffs has very negative consequences
for competition in the United States.
So we gotta, we gotta slowthem down in certain places.
And, and I do think
that first Trump administrationwas onto something on that.
And I do think the Bidenadministration continued that.
But we also gotta run faster.
If this is a race, we'renot gonna win just by trying

(26:55):
to slow them down.
And the other thing I would say to that,
another myth about the Cold War.
The Cold War, not, not amongst us, but,
but when I encounter people, you know,
mythologizing about theliberal international order
during the Cold War, itwasn't international.
We united the free worldwith our institutions

(27:16):
and the World Bank and IMF and GAD
and the World Trade Organization.
And that was to, you know,
unite the free worldagainst the communists.
And I think we gotta do that again.
We're not investing enough
to bring together thecapitalist free societies.
You know, we haven't doneany much innovation in that.

(27:36):
And the Chinese are innovating, right?
They're creating all kinds of clubs
where they're this focus,where they're the center,
Shanghai CooperationOrganization, bricks Belt
and Road Initiative reset, right?
You know, this trade organization,they got one. We don't.
And which is not to say
that we didn't make mistakeswith trade and all that.
I get all that, I gothrough that in the book.

(27:58):
But the, the response tomistakes in expanding WTO
is not to blow it allup, it's to reform it
and make it more supportive of capitalism.
Not withdraw. Because if wedon't, the Chinese are going
to dominate and they'renot withdrawing. So if
- We think no, that, that'sthe hopeful, I I think
that's the hope that like Sputnik got us

(28:19):
serious about science and tech.
Maybe competition withChina will get us serious
about being capitalists.
Right. And international and,
and good friends internationally.
H.R., I'm sorry. I hopeso. Paid my job. My,
- No.
Hey, I, I think this is areally important discussion
because the, the, theimpulse toward retrenchment,
Michael is what, you know, I see that
as based in these bigtransitions in the global economy
that occurred in the early two thousands.

(28:41):
Yeah. So loss tomanufacturing jobs, the belief
that it was our focus onengagements abroad that led
to a neglect of what's happening at home.
So you get financial crisis, you get Yeah.
All these blows that happened to Americans
who were skeptical, butactually it was our absence from
arenas of competition abroad, you know,
allowing China's entering into WTO
but not enforcing therules for their membership.

(29:03):
You know, that that led
to the situation that, that we're in.
And so, you know, you wouldbe labeled a globalist by many
of the people who are skeptical about
sustain engagement abroad.
Right. But what you're doingis you're making an argument
against kinda soft headed cosmopolitanism.
Yeah. And an argument forpurposeful international
approaches to problems thatprioritize our interests.
Of course. Exactly. Youknow, that are America first,

(29:26):
but not America alone.
So I think, you know, you gointo to, to give these talks,
to explain this to American people,
because I think for so longwe were all complacent.
You know, we thought, okay,you know, we we're all, we,
we all came, we werecomplacent up in full war.
Like we see the value ofalliances now we have to kind of,
you know, the, the value of it, I think,
- Well, H.R., that's a great frame.
It wasn't because we wereinvolved abroad, it was

(29:47):
that we were indifferentto what was going on.
And we didn't pay attentionto these trends, especially
with the Chinese, right?
Like how we got to this state
where they have all thiscontrol over critical minerals
that's being disengaged, not engaged.
I completely agree.
But we gotta explain that tothe American people, right?
I, I think at least myinternationalist strategy,

(30:11):
we lost the thread.
We allowed others to say, you know,
we're better off pulling back.
And so we gotta get out thereand make these arguments.
And, and that's mainly thereason I wrote this book.
And let me tell you justa little bit of good news.
I, you know, the, thebook just came out today,
but I've done a few talkseverywhere I show up,
there's the places are sold out.

(30:32):
The idea that the Americanpeople don't care about this,
that that's what we hearsometimes on the, on the coast.
That is not my experience.
And it doesn't mean they'realways agreeing with me.
And by the way, I can learnfrom listening, you know, from,
from perspectives in these places.
But I, I am struck by peoplewanna talk about these things.

(30:52):
And one more thing that isreally striking to me, you know,
there's a sense that Americans,
all we do is we care about our,our money and our security,
and we don't care about,you know, good and evil.
That's kind of thisso-called realism that,
that is in academia.
I gotta tell you, when I'mspeaking in these places,

(31:12):
when I talk about good
and evil, when I show a slide as Zelensky
and I say, I'd rather be on
that guy's side than Putin's side,
those are the biggest applause lines.
So this notion that all wecare about is ourselves,
I actually think that'snot an accurate reading
of the American people.
- Absolutely. I think so too.
And there's some polls that kind of bear
that out, you know? Yes.
- They- Still want to, you know, want to want

(31:34):
to have influence, positiveinfluence in the world
and not see that to terrain,to, to the authoritarians,
- But to, to give creditto people's reluctance.
America has shown in the last 20, 30 years
of foreign policy, a decidedunwillingness to see it through
to the tough times.
- Yep.- So the people whose, the people who went

(31:56):
to Afghanistan and, and H.R.,Iraq and who lost friends
and so forth, justly look aroundand say, what was that for?
So, you know, having somepersistence in our strategic
goals, I think would do a lot to
making people more comfortablewith going with their feeling
that this cannot stand,this must be reversed,

(32:16):
but are we just going toget involved in something
and then give up two years later,
and then the Taliban's running it again?
- Yeah, yeah. No, that's a great point.
And it's my biggest worryabout Ukraine, by the way,
right now, you know, aswhen I was on my way out
as ambassador in 2014, I leftbefore they invaded Crimea,

(32:38):
but I was doing the rounds,various government officials
and Putin, I've alreadymade clear, like, you know,
we didn't have much ofa relationship, but,
but your job as an ambassador is to engage
with the government whetheryou like them or not.
And I did have, you know, peoplewho work closely with Putin
that I did, you know, businessto advance the in interests

(32:58):
of, of American security and prosperity.
And that was, that's part of your job.
And one, one of thelast meetings I had was
with the first deputy prime minister.
He was the guy running the,the economy at the time.
His name's Valoff.
And we had these long debatesabout how bad Putin is or not.
And he was always telling me, Mike,
the communists are gonnacome if we don't have Putin.

(33:18):
And we argued aboutthat for about an hour.
But then we got to Ukraine
and he said two things that,
that have stuck with me ever since.
He said, Mike,
we care more about Ukrainethan you Americans.
And two, we have longer attentionspans than new Americans.
And that was 2014.

(33:40):
And I, I, I still wannabelieve that he's wrong,
but I sometimes wake upfearing that he might be right.
And, and so I gotta be allin to convince as many people
as I can, you know thathe's wrong wherever I can.
And I do so both
because I think it's the right thing to do

(34:00):
to fight against tyranny.
But I also think to go backto our earlier conversation,
it's in our strategic interest.
Because H.R., back to somethingyou said a few minutes ago,
he's not stopping in Ukraine.
He's already threatening our NATO allies.
He is already testing the waters
and he's probing, he wants to see.
And what he wants to do is he wants

(34:22):
to spark a division withinthe alliance of those
that are willing to fight
for Lithuania versus those that aren't.
Right. And that is ascary proposition to me.
So the more we can doto stop him in Ukraine,
the less we have to have debatesover whether we're gonna go
to war with Russia overcountries like Lithuania,
Estonia, or Poland.

(34:43):
- Mike, we have about a minute left here.
You make it a point to endthe book on a guardedly
optimistic note.
Yes. What is your guarded,what is your guarded optimism?
- Well, the, the,
the epilogue is don'tbet against America yet.
That's the, that's the end of the book.
And it goes back to somethingthat John said earlier,
when I add up power in thefree world, military power

(35:04):
and economic power, we gotway more than the autocrats.
We're just not as organizedas they are today.
When I looked at ID at ideas,
our ideas are better than their ideas.
And the data, as H.R.has already suggested,
more people wanna vote fortheir leaders than have God
or the Communist partyor a soldier choose them.
No disrespect to the formersoldier on our podcast here.

(35:27):
And, and when I look at innovation,
we still got better companies,
we still got better capital markets,
we still got better universities.
And if we invest in them, I'm confident
that we will prevail inthis new Cold War just
like we did in the last one.
- Very good. The title of the book, again,
autocrats versus Democrats,China America, Russia,
and The New Global Disorder.

(35:48):
Mike, where else can ouraudience find you online?
- You can find me everywhere.I'm on x I'm on Substack.
I'm almost everywhere now, but,
but great to be with you all.
Thanks for the conversation.
- Our pleasure too. And hey,take those 700 extra pages
and just put 'em back on yoursubstack repurpose of it.
- Okay. Good idea.- Hey Mike, congratulations on you guys,

(36:09):
- Man.
Thanks for the conversation.Really enjoyed it. Fantastic.
Bye-bye.
- Hey guys, it's now time togo trick or treating John.
I'm gonna take away your Monica here.
I'm gonna be grumpy for a minute.
I, each year, like Halloween,less and less and less.

(36:30):
Now this is granted,this is what old men do.
I remember having Halloweensort of much simpler.
You didn't do much the way of costumes.
Candy was very simple.
You'd walk around thoselittle orange UNICEF boxes.
It was about kids. AndI see Halloween now,
and it looks like theadults have hijacked it.
It's, people are decorating their houses
to a great extent herearound where I live.

(36:50):
You go on the supermarket,they're selling candy
and pumpkin goods in July.
It just kind of seems outta control.
So am I being a little too grim here?
Or what do you guys think?
- Yeah, you know, I was not,I mean, as of course, a kid,
you, you're always into,you know, Halloween,
but I, I was never one of my big holidays.
But now having grandkids,I'm really into it
because, you know, youknow, they're dressed
as like a pumpkin orlike dinosaurs, you know,

(37:12):
and they're having a great time.
So you kinda livevicariously through them.
And, and you know, I, mymy, I have fond memories
of my cousin, my cousin Dan.
I mean, he would scare thehell outta my aunt every year.
He came up with a different way
of doing it every single year.
And, and just when shethought she's outta the woods,
he would terrify her again with some kind
of gruesome disguise orsomething, or, or, you know, but,

(37:35):
but, but it was a hootwith my cousins growing up.
And now it's great to seeour grandkids doing it.
- Okay guys, let's go trickor treating item number one.
Democrats and preservationistsare at a TSI slash uproar
over the construction of a ballroom
that prompted the demolitionof the White House's,
east Wing H.R. and John Trick
or treat on this home improvement?

(37:55):
- Oh, man, it's both, right? It's both.
I mean, I, you know, I just, it's just,
just the way things happen, you know, and,
and you know, the residents,
most people don't really evensee the, know the residents.
I mean, I mean, I mean, sorry, the
resident, the, the East Wing.
And they, some people areconflating it with the residents,
you know, some of the rooms there,
the diplomatic reception roomand the map room and so forth.

(38:17):
The library, you know, whereFDR gave his fireside chats,
that has not been demolished.
So anyway, I, you know, I,
I just wish it had beenhandled a bit better,
but, you know, I mean, itwill be nice to have a bigger,
a bigger area there.
You know, there's onlyso much you can get,
you can do in the east room and, and,

(38:38):
and so, you know, for largerevents it'll be, it'll be good.
But, but I also worry aboutthe proportions a little bit.
I'm not an architect, you know,
but it does look like a little bit,
a little bit outproportion with, you know,
with the residents in the West Wing. John,
- I'm guessing that John, I'mguessing this is filling up
the hours on NPR as youdrive around California.
- Yeah, I think this isactually a, a revealing one.

(39:00):
You know, you kind of,anyone who looks at it kind
of admits, yeah, there, therewas a need for this having
even Hoover built a building.
'cause we got tired ofhaving our donors tent on the
grass. That was kind of of silly.
- Yes. - Yeah, you haveyour architectural views of,
of, of Trump and so forth.
But the interestingthing here was of course,
what are they up in, in tizzyabout, well, the Commission

(39:22):
for Historic this and theplanning commission for that,
and the zoning commission forthis didn't get consulted,
but we all know if that ever
happened or would it taken years.
So how did Trump get around all that?
He just fired him all andput it on his own people.
So I would love, when wewere trying to get permits
for this house, I wouldlove to have been able
to just fire the entire PaloAlto zoning board put in,
you know, H.R. McMaster.

(39:42):
And two weeks later I got my permits.
It took us two years and that,
but that tells you a little bit of what's
dysfunctional in Washington.
It would've taken years, you know, it,
it would hardly ever get done.
And Trump just blunderbuses through things to,
to get things done, which is unfortunate.
The, the other unfortunatepart about it is
this is something Congress should pay for.

(40:02):
I, you know, I think we should pay taxes
to build a better White House.
Now it's privatelyfunded by who knows who.
That's not even being disclosed,
who it's being privately funded by.
But Congress has a powerof the purse, which is
how it's supposed to weigh in on what,
what are we like doing things.
So that's the part of, youknow, Trump goes through
and gets stuff done, but,
but in ways that, yes, theold system wasn't working,

(40:26):
but the old system had some advantages.
We don't want to just go with, oh,
you know, my buddies pay forit. I do whatever I want.
- By the way, John, everyone concerned
about architecture here?
Have they looked at the Obama Library?
- I was gonna bring that up,
but I didn't want my, II've been there to visit it.
The Megalith has descendedin Jackson Park. It
- Looks- Scary.
It looks like the, theStai Surveillance Unit.

(40:48):
I mean, what a fitting testimonial thing
about administration in,
- Alright, gentlemen, item number two,
China has fired its top trade negotiator,
the CCP earlier this month,
expelled nine top generalsallegedly for financial crimes.
Most of them three StarGenerals HR, trick or treat.
- Hey, that's a treat, man. I love that.
I mean, I, I think, youknow, I think it's good.

(41:09):
I think it's good that thePLA has this crisis within it,
you know, so if you're in anauthoritarian regime like this,
you know, the so-calledcommunist regime we're supposed
to be egalitarian.
Of course we know it's alwaysthe opposite of that, right?
It's cronyism, it's corruption.
It's the scam that you're running.
And so, you know, this is
what brings these authoritarian
regimes to their knees, right?
I mean, look how, look, how, how,

(41:30):
how tight Chow Cheskyhad his grip on power
until he didn't, you know?
And, and so I think it's areal indicator of weakness
and how brittle theseauthoritarian regimes are.
And hopefully it's given XiJinping a little bit of pause,
you know, maybe, maybe Ishouldn't be so aggressive
with the PLA and,
and I wonder how much he'sbeing lied to like he is,
and hopefully we're notdoing this too, like he is

(41:51):
with economic statistics, you know,
because the co the countryis actually probably in, in,
in a, in a recession right now.
But he's showing, you know, great economic
growth stats and everything else.
So anyway, it just shows tome that this is kind of a,
you know, a, the brittlenessof, of an authoritarian regime,
like the Chinese Communist Party.
- I, I agree. And this a related
drive going on that I read about.

(42:12):
So there's a, a new drive against scams.
'cause a great scam in China is to pretend
that I'm HR McMaster's, buddy,
I can get you a job atthe Hoover Institution.
You give me a lot of Bitcoinand, and he's really going
after the people who do those scams.
But of course, the scams exist
because the way to get aheadis o only through, you know,

(42:33):
trying to bribe the people in charge.
That's why corruption isalways a huge part of these.
And, and corruption not just at the top.
I mean, you, you, you can makefun of the US a little bit,
but corruption in all the wheelsof power, which is, that's
what happens on autocratic regime.
So a treat for those of uson the free side of the world
to watch all, all of the waysthat autocracies really work.

(42:55):
No, they're not some giant machine ready
to churn out optimal stuff.
- John HR I mentioned economicstatistics we have here in
the United States reportsit inflation checked in at
3% for September.
John trick or treat,
- Well treat for inflation.
Hawks trick for thosewho think that, you know,
are we on a soft landing
or gonna stall out 50feet over the runway,

(43:17):
or I like to think ofinflation like cockroaches.
When you're down to the last two,
that doesn't mean you're over.
So we have this persistent inflation,
and that's going to be apersistent thorn in the side
of anyone who's in charge.
Until it gets worse
or until it goes away,
who knows what's gonnahappen with inflation.
- On a related economicnote, John Gold, the price

(43:38):
of gold is going down harderthan the failures in the
playoffs trick or treat.
- There's an HR get to get,get to chime in on inflation.
- No, you don't want me to do that
- Gold up, down, sideways.
It, it basically irrelevant,you know, sort of an indicator
of when the extreme tailof the market gets worried.

(43:59):
But I, I don't think it's fun to watch.
But like Bitcoin, Idon't think it has much
predictive power for anything
- Under our next item.
Apparently there's no such thing
as Malay malaise inArgentina, voters there going
to the polls and givingArgentine president Javier Malay
enough support in Congress
to prevent his Vito from being overridden.
Does this make the 40 millionbillion dollars bailout
promise by Trump a trick or a treat?

(44:21):
- Yeah, I think it's kindof a treat because we hung
with Argentina, you know, the, the story
of Argentina has been so tragic
and I know that, you know, John May,
may not think this is good,you know, policy, you know,
financial policy to tryto, you know, with the,
with the exchange pays fordollars, that kind of thing.
But, but hey, if it worked, it worked
because, you know, Argentina'snever been patient enough
to get, to get throughthe painful reforms so

(44:42):
that it could become solventand a successful economy.
And, and so it, it it, it was one
of these countries like manyin the Western hemisphere
that swing between, you know, conservative
to back the far left and so forth.
And I don't know howmuch longer they could
survive those swings, you know?
So I'm, I'm glad to seeactually also the fact
that President Trump came in so hard

(45:04):
and then Argentinians votedfor Mele Melee, which,
which I think indicates a pro,pro-American sentiment there.
They don't want Argentina to,to, to sort of hook its future
to China, for example.
- Well, and it meansArgentina's more free market
than America right now.
I mean, I love millet and park.
'cause people tell me, oh, you know,
all your free marketers,it's politically unrealistic.

(45:25):
And I say, oh yeah. And whenis Argentina gonna elect the
president, who's a libertarianand names his dog, meas
and von Hayek or whatever.
It's lovely to see theArgentinian people sticking
with what will work.
I hope it's an example tothe, to the rest of us.
It is possible to balance budgetsin, you know, from drastic
to next to nothing in a space of a year.

(45:47):
Hello, US Congress.
It is possible to endinflation essentially overnight
without stringent monetary policy.
And all sorts of wonderfultruths are being revealed now
about the, the, the bailout.
I'm, I'm usually againstthat sort of thing,
but let's say good things.
It was the treasury, notthe Fed who did this.
So if you're gonna put ustaxpayers money on the line,

(46:08):
let it be the politicallyaccountable treasury who does it.
That's right. And actually I,I'd go further the one thing,
Argentina needs the dollar rise
and for 40 billion we couldsimply give 'em enough dollars
to buy back all the pesos andthe whole business is over.
So let's not have the haveyabouts it. Let's go all in.
- I understand there's a Concord trip
to Argentina in the future.

(46:29):
- Well, it's a Hoover trip to Argentina
because that's who's paying for it,
- Starring John Cochrane.
- But it's gonna be a great one.
I really look forwardto going to Argentina.
- Very go get, get, getin a rugby match there.
It's a great rugby country.
- I'm gonna get in aglider flight if I can.
'cause it's even better for that.
- Most people wouldthink steak and Malbec,
John Cochrane goes glider fighting.
Okay, okay, fine. Right.

(46:49):
So John recently received anemail from a good fellows fan
who's also a CEO of a large retailer.
The CEO e's not a fan of terrorists,
believes we'll start feelingthe real effects from them in
the first quarter of 2026 for the economy.
John, trick or treat?
- Well, it's a predictable,
so is is a trick, is it a trick

(47:11):
or a treat if you know what's coming?
I thought it was very interesting
because what this anonymous,
'cause he's not stupidretailer said, is that he
and his buddies are essentially,he and his competitors.
They're essentially lookingaround the cold pool
and saying, who's gonna jump in first?
The costs are going up.
They've got someinventory they can pass on
and not really see theaccounting bottom line.
But they all know that they're gonna have

(47:32):
to raise prices sooner or later.
And, and he's think he'strying to be really nice,
get his customers throughthe Christmas seasons.
They don't get pissed off.But his, his forecast was
that things kick in in January.
So, you know, long forecasttariffs are attacks
that gets paid onto consumers
and it makes the economy a little less
efficient over the long run.
And, you know, we're gonnastart seeing that in,

(47:54):
in about a year fromwhen the tariffs went in,
which is about what it usually takes.
- Hr How often is tariffscoming up in your conversations
with world leaders andcolleagues of yours?
- Frequently, frequently.
It's really tariffs and tradepolicy overall, you know, and,
and, and then I thinkreally what, you know,
what I hear from my, my friendsinternationally is they're

(48:15):
ready for a positive agenda.
Everything so far has been kind
of negative from their point of view.
But we're aligned in termsof what we want, right?
We want to invigorate industrial basis.
We're concerned about China's lock on
critical supply chains.
We know it's gonna require deregulation.
We know we have, you know,a a you know, a huge demand,
a bow wave of, of, of,of energy demand coming
that we have to work together on.

(48:36):
So these are all elementsof President Trump's agenda.
And so what I'm seeing withthis trip to Asia is kind
of the emergence of this positive agenda.
I'm very encouraged by thattrip to Asia, by the way.
I mean, going to Cambodia, I mean,
that would've been unthinkableunder this guy Hansen.
You know, you've, so you'vegot a new leader in Cambodia
talk about trolling the Chinese Communist
Party by going to Cambodia.
That was fantastic.Great visit in Malaysia.

(48:58):
Awesome tone of the visit in Japan.
So, you know, I'm thinkingthat now's the time
when the Trump agenda could be, you know,
shift from the negative, maybeeven with Canada, who knows,
you know, and then, and, and,
and move to the positive, you know,
us MCA negotiations going on now.
North America has tremendousgifts bestowed upon us in terms

(49:21):
of natural resources, the, the,
the compatible nature of our economies.
So, hey, I, I feel prettygood about it right now.
- So I, I just wannaadd a thing on tariffs.
'cause as an economistI'm always in, you know,
reflexively tariffs bed.
But I've certainly learned and,
and watching tariffs hurtother countries a lot
and has been an a, anenormously useful bludgeon

(49:41):
to wake them up and get them to do stuff.
So if used wisely, you know,
that's a delicate negotiating tactic.
I'm, I'm gonna, youknow, hit HR in the face
and get 'em to wake up and,
and do what I want on goodfellow,
- Like the, like the Ontario response.
Like, I don't like your commercial.
- Oh yeah. You know, so whenis it a national emergency
that they put Iran, Reagan,you know, the legal part

(50:03):
of it is, but it is truethat putting tariffs on,
forget the economics, just
as a geopolitical slap in the face.
It, it does wake otherpeople up now, then you have
to use it wisely.
'cause it hurts us too. So,you know, I'm hurting us.
It hurt, it hurts me, it hurts you more.
I want to get you to do something.

(50:23):
You have to have a strategicgoal and, and pursue it
and know when to come off of it.
Not just keep doing it for its own stake,
but it's certainly, that'sthe way to think of it.
Don't think of it as economic policy.
Think of it as geopoliticalpolicy to try to, to, you know,
and then wise or unwise.
That's what tariffs are now.
- Hey John, I wantedto ask you about this.
How about also tariffs as a way
to incentivize investmentin the United States?

(50:44):
Because, you know, presidentTrump is announcing all these
major investments in, in USmanufacturing from, you know,
Toyota he mentioned today.
You know, so does thatwork? I mean to say okay.
- No.- Okay. Alright.
- Because, so first of all, tariffs,
when they give protection,let's look at GM and US Steel.
Oh, well that did a great job
of incentivizing innovationin the US It just protects

(51:05):
companies and makes 'em inefficient.
These deals. Japan is alreadyinvesting a tremendous amount
in the, in the us when theysend us stuff, we send them,
you know, we, we gotta send them capital.
They buy US stocks.
These are government togovernment investments
that are gonna go fromthe Japanese government
to a fund controlled by Trumpwith no congressional input
to put into whateverthings he wants to do.

(51:25):
Now we'll see what Trump wants to do,
but I certainly know whatthe Biden administration did
with hundreds of billionsof dollars worth of, of
of money to invest it.
We're not very good at government directed
investment in the us.
- Now, general investor happens
to be New York City in aroom that has very good wifi.
I'd add voters there.
A week from today will go to the polls
to choose a new mayor, and thelikely winner is gonna be a

(51:46):
Democratic socialistcandidate who offers a lot
of political can thingslike free bus rides
and univers universal childcare.
John, for goer's trick or treat
- Instance of HL Mankin sayingthat democracy is the theory
that the average voter knows what he wants
and deserves to get it good and hard.

(52:08):
You know, maybe great newsfor the rats of New York City,
I think, and, and a treat for Republicans.
You know, Democrats caneither show us what, how
to implement Cuban Venezuela in the US
or they could show us how theyknow how to govern sensibly.
And they seem determined to be Trump,
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
That's what Gavin New Newsom is doing.

(52:28):
Or, or to, or, youknow, put in government,
run grocery stores while still banning
Walmart from New York.
Oh yeah, that, that's a great idea.
So, you know, you need aCuba, Venezuela, North Korea
around all the time to remindyourself how bad communism is.
Looks like New York Citywill be that for, for the US
- Hr, they're there on the ground.

(52:48):
Do you feel the Mond excitement?
- I haven't yet. I thinkeverybody here is just exhausted
from staying up to watch, youknow, the, the GA game three
of the World Series and, and,
and hoping that the Dodgers lose
because they still arepretty sore about the
Dodgers leaving Brooklyn.
- Okay, last question.
The United States government's come out

(53:08):
with a revised citizentest, 20 questions 12.
You have to get to pass
with the greater emphasis onUS history, trick or treat,
or making it harder tobecome a US citizen.
- Hey, well, I, you know,what, what I think is, is, is
immigrants will rise to the occasion
because, you know, immigrants,I mean, heck, I mean, those
who go through the, thelegal immigration process,
which is tough, they're ourmost patriotic citizens.

(53:32):
I mean, they know more, they,
they know more civics than anybody
who graduates from any moreuniversities just about,
you know, so I let alonesecondary education.
So I think, hey, you know,they will are, you know, they,
they will rise to the occasion.
And, and I don't think it'll make
that much of a difference on,
- On the list of difficultiesto immigrate legally
to the US if you're a hardworking Mexican

(53:53):
or Indian, having
to pass another 10 questions on the
citizenship test is nothing.
That 200 year wait listto be allowed in is,
is a much more significant barrier.
But I, I'm all for the citizenship test
and let us, you shouldn't beable to graduate high school
unless you can pass thecitizenship test is an
even better idea.

(54:14):
- Yeah. Ho And hopefully it'snot meant to be like the,
the rabbit at the bridgeat in the holy grail.
You know, it's not hope. It's not meant
to deny people passage, you know?
- Yeah. Do we think er, NeilFerguson could pass this new
and tougher test in hr?
Should we put a bunch offootball questions on there
to really make life tough more?
- Yeah. Neil would've never gotten
in. He would've never gotten in.

(54:35):
- Okay.- Just like if you put a cricket, cricket,
cricket questions on it,on a UK test, you know,
nobody's gonna be able to get into the uk.
- Yeah, it is, you know,I, I, I'm for immigration,
but it's perfectly reasonableto demand that people who want
to come to your country,speak the language,
know your culture, understandyour history, and, and,
but lots and lots ofgreat people could come in
with those mild requirements.

(54:57):
- And if I could put in a plug
for our Hoover programon revitalizing American
institutions, there's,there's a big civics
education initiative goingon at, at Hoover as well
that I think is gonnamake a big influence.
- Okay. Final trick or treat question.
What is your go-to Halloween candy, John?
- Well, I, I love Halloweenwhen my kids were little
and it was a chance to goaround the neighborhood.

(55:18):
I got a shout out to myneighbor, Peter Rossi.
Always had whiskey for the dads
and candy for the kids.Yeah. Thanks Peter.
- Okay. And hr, is itsomething Philly related?
- Of course it is. Goldbergspeanut chews. They're the best.
And, you know, and, and, anddon't, don't scrimp on 'em.
You gotta get the big Goldbergs
with like the multiplepeanut trees in there.
And if anybody hasn't had 'em, you got,
you gotta have 'em.They're, they're delicious.

(55:40):
- Three out of fivedentist agree. Very good.
Gentlemen, I don't even wanna know
what your Halloween costumes are gonna be.
Maybe we'll save that for the next show.
Speaking, which we willhave two good Fellows
episodes in November.
The second one of which,which we'll be recording right
around the Thanksgivingholiday in the US is going
to be a mailbag show, as we call it.
So if you have questions for HR and John,

(56:02):
and they tell me thatthere's nothing you ask
that they cannot answer, so bring it on.
That's a tougher questionas you can send it
to the following address,
which is hoover.org/ask goodfellows.
That address again ishoover.org. Ask Goodfellows.
We hope you enjoyed today's show.
We hope you enjoyed theconversation with Mike Beal.
The tale of his book again isAutocrats versus Democrats,

(56:23):
China America, Russia, andThe New Global Disorder.
On behalf of the Goodfellows,John Cochrane, HR McMaster,
the Truitt, Sergio Ferguson,
we hope you enjoyed our show today.
We'll be back soon. Until then, take care.
Thanks again for watching.
- If you enjoyed this show
and are interested in watchingmore content featuring HR

(56:44):
McMaster, watch Battlegroundsalso [e-mail].